Teaching Methods

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Teaching Methods

• Chapters 13 and 14
• Lab 9

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4 Approaches Covered

• 1. Direct Instruction, expository approaches
• 2. Constructivist approaches-discovery learning
• 3. Humanistic approach-student centered learning
• 4. Cooperative Learning

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Direct Instruction

• 1. all classroom activity is on learning academic
  knowledge and skills.
• 2. teacher makes all decisions
• 3. students are to remain on task as much as
  possible
• 4. classrooms managed by rf, few aversive
  consequences.

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Phases of Direction Instruction

• Orientation, presentation, practice

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Phases of Direct Instruction

• 1. Orientation overview of the lesson
• WHY they need to learn the material
• Relate the new material to earlier lessons or
  their life experience
• Informs them of the level of performance they
  need

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2. Presentation

• Explaining, illustrating, and demonstrating the
  new material.
• Broken into steps for mastery of the concepts.
• Should provide numerous examples.

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Components

• 1. small units.
• 2. logical sequence.
• 3. master each unit.
• 4. concrete, observable criterion for mastery of
  unit.
• 5. remedial help available.

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Mastery learning

• Must master one topic before moving to next
• Good for math, foundational concepts
• Appropriate for anything hierarchical

9
Help Students Take Notes

• Use good blackboard technique.
• Tell children when to take notes.

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Check for Understanding

• Taking the temperature of the group
• --Choral response
• --select children on different levels
• --random calling on, but not as disciplinary
  technique
• --use volunteers (least effective)

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3. Practice

• Purpose to allow children to practice skill so
  they can do it alone
• To clear up misunderstandings following the
  explanation.

12
a. Structured Practice

• Teacher leads whole class through each step in a
  problem
• MINIMIZE incorrect responses

13
How to conduct a structured practice session

• Have a number of questions planned before you
  start
• Make sure all the students answer in some way
• Increase the cognitive level of questions

14
Wait-Times

• Wait-time I
• Interval before students respond
• Wait-time II
• Amount of time between the childs response and
  the teachers answer

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Directing Questioning

• Dont use volunteers more than 10-15 of the time
• Call on students in a patterned order
• Random call-ons create anxiety
• Call name first, then ask question

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Handling incorrect responses

• First, confirm if part was correct
• Probing means breaking the question down (provide
  scaffolding)
• Dont praise wrong answersmaybe the effort (nice
  try, but )
• Repeat correct answer when you get it

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b. Guided Practice (seatwork)

• Children work on papers or worksheets on their
  own
• Texts, workbooks, silent reading

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Purposes of Seatwork

• Provide practice time with teacher available for
  scaffolding
• Provide something for the children to do while
  the teacher is engaged elsewhere

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Seatwork

• Children spend between 50-75 of the day in
  seatwork
• May automatize undetected errors
• Least engaged time

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Seatwork Management

• Have list of seatwork items as EXTERNAL MEDIATOR
• Circulate among students during seatwork
• Aim for contacts of lt30 seconds
• Remember the importance of room arrangement

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Effective Seatwork

• effective teachers
• Spend more time in demonstrations, guided
  practice prior to
• Demonstrates a few problems
• Seatwork directly follows instruction

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Management continued

• Have established routines for
• when you are finished where to put your
  work
• what to do if you finish early
• when you have questions about directions
• May use external mediation peers

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c. Independent Practice

• Research shows that this is when children are
• least engaged
• most prone to errors
• likely to become confused.

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Research on Hmwk

• Not correlated w/ achievement until about JHS
• Probably no benefit for el ed
• Often more correlated with parental skills than
  child skills

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Homework

• Assignments to be done at home.
• Required in most districts starting in
  kindergarten.
• Suffers from more errors and poor engagement
  rates than seatwork.

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El Ed Effective Homework

• Should hone childs study skills
• Have the children practice things you know they
  can do.
• Focus on creativity.
• Plan what parents should do.

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Effective Homework

• Have children practice study skills
• --highlighting
• --taking notes
• --outlining chapters
• --summarizing information

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Effective Homework

• Never give a new assignment
• Break a large assignment into pieces (such as a
  book report)

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Constructivist Approaches

• Individualized Instruction
• Discovery Learning, Cooperative Lrn

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a. Individualized instruction

• Goals, objectives, pace of instruction,
  assessment all determined by student
• Works well for highly motivated students

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Individualized Instruction

• Not superior to direct instruction
• Depends heavily on student motivation

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b. Cooperative Learning Groups

• Purpose
• Children work in groups to create a product.
• Usually mixed ability grouping
• Children learn to work together scaffold each
  other.

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Disadvantages

• Dominant personalities can dominate the work
• Not all children are able work at an equal level
• Difficult to grade fairly

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Improving Cooperative Learning

• Choose the topic carefully
• Choose the size and composition of the group
• Assign roles that are equal in importance but
  depend on different skills
• Dont grade

35
Does Co-op work?

• More effective than non-coop in raising
  achievement, motivation, positive social
  outcomes
• Students more likely to name a classmate from
  other race, ethnicity, social class as Nice or
  Smart

36
c. Discovery learning

• Should include how ideas connect w/ one another
• How to frame problems
• Asking appropriate questions

37
Teachers Role in Discover Lrn.

• Provides stimulating activity
• Answer student questions

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Advantages of Dis Lrn

• Works well in sciences
• Works best w/ motivated learners
• Probably guided discovery learning is best